Iraq aims to drive ISIS from west Mosul within a month, Baghdadi in hiding
March 10th, 20170 MOSUL — Iraqi forces aim to dislodge ISIS militants from west Mosul within a month, despite grueling urban combat in densely populated terrain, the head of the elite Counter Terrorism Service told Reuters on Thursday. As Iraqi forces advance deeper into west Mosul, they are facing increasingly stiff resistance from ISIS militants...
Media blackouts muddle objectivity
March 6th, 20171 DEARBORN— In political science, the “CNN effect” refers to the effect of round-the-clock 24 hour coverage on wars and humanitarian crises. The term credits such coverage as being instrumental in mobilizing and manufacturing opinion and influencing foreign policy. Yet, security consultant and analyst Joshua Geis joins numerous...
Obama transferred $221 million to Palestinian Authority in his final hours in office
January 26th, 20170 WASHINGTON — In his last hours in office, the Obama administration transferred $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that despite opposition from GOP members of Congress, officials say. A State Department official and several congressional aides told the Associated Press that the outgoing administration and former Secretary of...
Lebanese security forces foil suicide attack in Beirut’s crowded street
January 21st, 20170 BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanese security forces arrested a would-be suicide bomber inside a crowded cafe in one of the busiest neighbourhoods in the capital Beirut on Saturday night, security sources told AFP. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a man wearing an explosive bomb belt had been detained by authorities after...
Most ISIS leaders in Mosul killed
January 21st, 20170 MOSUL — Most ISIS commanders in Mosul have been killed in battles with Iraqi government forces that raged over the past three months in the eastern side of the city, an Iraqi general said on Thursday. The fight to take the western side of Mosul, which remains under the jihadists' control, should not be more difficult than the...
Assad hopes for ‘reconciliation’ deals with rebels
January 19th, 20170 DAMASCUS — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he believed peace talks in Kazakhstan would lead to local "reconciliation" deals with rebels, a sign of his confidence in a process launched by his Russian allies after the opposition's defeat in Aleppo. Assad told a Japanese TV station he hoped the conference would be a platform...Israel deliberately forgets its history
Every Israeli knows that he or she is the direct and exclusive descendant of a Jewish people which has existed since it received the Torah in Sinai. According to this myth, the Jews escaped from Egypt and settled in the Promised Land, where they built the glorious kingdom of David and Solomon, which subsequently split into the...Palestinian group considers end of two-state strategy
WASHINGTON An informal group of prominent Palestinian academics, politicians, entrepreneurs and activists has published a report that raises questions and offers solutions regarding Palestinian national strategy. It follows a growing sense of doubt that two decades of negotiations will culminate in an outcome fair to...
Israel pushes ahead with settlement expansion
September 6th, 20080 JERUSALEM (IPS) Israel has published tenders for the construction of 1,761 illegal housing units for Israeli settlers in occupied east Jerusalem alone, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now. The expansion plans come despite promises by the Israeli government at last year's peace summit at Annapolis, Maryland (in the...‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ looks for revival
BEIRUT (IPS) Lebanon was long dubbed the 'Switzerland of the Middle East' for its advanced banking sector. It lost its status 23 years ago at the dawn of the 1975 civil war, which lasted 15 years. The country has since been unable to regain the title, in spite of the brief economic revival witnessed in the 1990s. Since 2005,...Iraq says all troops out by 2011
WASHINGTON (IPS) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signaled last week that that all U.S. troops including those with non-combat functions must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration. That pronouncement, along with other moves indicating that...Syria sets basis for peace talks
Damascus has sent a proposal to Israel laying out the basis for direct peace talks, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has said. "We are awaiting Israel's response to six points that we have submitted through Turkey," he said on Thursday. "Our response would be positive, paving the way for direct talks after a new U.S....
Free Gaza boats challenge Israel’s siege
August 29th, 20080 An international group of peace activists took on Israel's crushing siege of the Gaza Strip. After two years of organizing two ships to sail to Gaza's shores, the ships made their journey in defiance of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. The ships left with several Palestinians in need of medical treatment and others...Illegal Israeli settlements get tax breaks
JERUSALEM (Reuters) The United States says Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threaten any peace between Israel and the Palestinians yet it also encourages Americans to help support settlers by offering tax breaks on donations. As Condoleezza Rice flew in on Monday for another round of peace talks, Israeli and American...
A downsized occupation disguised as withdrawal
August 29th, 20080 Back in January, the Bush administration proposed a Status of Forces Agreement to govern relations between American troops and the Iraqis after the U.N. mandate expires in December 2008. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton accused the White House of trying to tie the hands of a future American president and many Democrats in......
Hizbullah’s triumph is blow for Israeli policy
NEW YORK (IPS) Since the 34-day Israel-Lebanon two years ago, and particularly after the Doha accord in May which restored Hizbullah to the Lebanese government and essentially gave it the veto power it demanded, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been the most popular figure anywhere in the Arab world. "For decades, the Shi'a...
U.S., Iraq have draft to pull U.S. troops out
August 22nd, 20080 BAGHDAD Iraq and the U.S. have reached a preliminary agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraqi cities by next June, six years into the increasingly unpopular war, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The negotiations over a withdrawal timetable follow......
Israel clears soldiers in killing of Palestinian journalist, youths
The Israeli government has announced it won't prosecute soldiers involved in the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana and eight Palestinian youths. The twenty-four-year-old Palestinian died on April 16 in Gaza when an Israeli tank shelled his vehicle clearly marked "press." Shana's final piece of footage shows the tank firing a...Little hope of peace after Olmert
CAIRO (IPS) With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent resignation announcement, the self-proclaimed Jewish state is headed for new leadership. Egyptian commentators, though, entertain few hopes that Olmert's successor whoever he or she may be will temper Israel's hard-line approach to the peace process. "Israeli...Gaza and West Bank in muddied separation
RAMALLAH (IPS) Over a hundred Fatah fighters loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement fled to the West Bank from Gaza last week, fearing for their lives at the hands of Hamas, the Islamic movement which took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after it routed Fatah forces. The Fatah men barely managed to escape...One-fifth of Iraq funding paid to contractors
NEW YORK (IPS) As a new report forecasts that the 190,000 private contractors in Iraq and neighboring countries will cost U.S. taxpayers more than 100 billion dollars by the end of 2008, an under-the-radar Florida court case suggests that U.S. President George W. Bush a staunch contractor supporter is preparing to throw......
U.S. officials admit worry over a “difficult” al-Maliki
WASHINGTON (IPS) U.S. officials privately admit being concerned that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki has become "overconfident" about his government's ability to manage without U.S. combat troops, according to an Iraq analyst who just returned from a trip to Iraq arranged by U.S. commander General David Petraeus. Colin...U.S. shifts ‘hearts and minds’ fight
Washington Nearly seven years after the 9/11 attacks spawned the question, "Why do they hate us?" and made the repair of America's poor international image a top foreign-policy pursuit, the Bush administration is taking a new tack in the "war of ideas." Out, or at least de-emphasized, is the effort to explain America and its......
Palestinian Authority rejects Israeli proposal
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected an Israeli peace proposal because it did not provide for a contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, Abbas' office said Tuesday. Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas' spokesman, told the official Palestinian WAFA news agency Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert's plan showed a "lack of...
Palestinians bury poet Darwish in West Bank
August 15th, 20080 Palestinians bade an emotional farewell on Wednesday to their national poet Mahmoud Darwish, who was laid to rest on a hilltop overlooking the West Bank city of Ramallah. Darwish died Saturday in Houston at age 67 after complications from open-heart surgery. He was the first Palestinian to receive a state funeral since Yasser......
